Microaggressions are reoccurring derogatory messages that degrade one’s identity. While invisible and unknown to many, they remain visible and apparent to those impacted by them. The research questions for this project are: (1) What microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within larger society? (2) To contrast with larger society, what microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within Black communities? Using in-depth interviews, I will examine the intersectional microaggressions that Queer Black males experience in their own community and in larger society. After conducting my interviews, I will adopt Derald Wing Sue’s taxonomy of microaggression themes to translate the underlying messages behind delivered microaggressions. The results in this study will aid in addressing a gap within intersectional microaggression literature by documenting how Queer Black males experience these muted, normalized insults and invalidations in society.

In this study, I investigate how students with different racial identities -- white students and students of color -- think and interpret their own value of their debt as they near graduation and thus, begin their journey of repayment. Knowing that students of color take on a higher debt burden than white students, I want to look at these two groups of students and see if there is a difference in how students perceive their debt in accordance with their life, racial identity, and social experiences. I will investigate this using in depth interviews of students with $20,000 or more of student debt. This research will provide insight about the intersection of socioeconomic status, race, and student debt within American colleges. This will expand our understanding of how different people place a value on and expand on their student debt. As the student debt burden increases in the U.S., it is crucial that we understand how people make sense of that debt within their lives.

This research seeks to assess the feasibility of sustainable community engagement amidst urban planning projects. It seems like every other day there is city construction taking place in hopes of becoming the next major metropolis; a new public park here, a microbrewery opening right down the street -- when do we draw the line between neighborhood revitalization and gentrification? When a city government agrees to sponsor a revitalization project, we must consider the following questions: who will take on the responsibility of which roles? What level of city intervention is actually appropriate and in which spaces? More importantly, we must ask if there are concrete strategies moving forward; what other actions can be done in order to ensure the continued development of this project? I assess these questions more broadly through a case study comparison between two ongoing urban development projects: the Lincoln District Revitalization Project (LDRP) happening in Tacoma, Washington, and the Bayview-Hunter’s Point Redevelopment Project (BHPRP) taking place in San Francisco, California. I explore not only the ways in which city administrators provide accessible opportunities to ensure community involvement, but also the potential resources that can be established to sustain future collaboration amongst city and community. Two types of populations from both cities are assessed: local residents and municipal government actors. I spend my time in various project sites where city members and community members frequent, conducting both unstructured and semi-structured interviews of these two populations over the course of 10 months. My findings show that distinctions upon the relationship between cultural vitality and economic vitality are essential in ensuring effective development that engages all stakeholders.

Identity is constructed by the intersection of many different categories that are supported or marginalized by the society depending on variables such as context, time, place and group values. This study sought to investigate how the categorical intersections of identities as sociological concepts were informed, challenged or supported  through the experiences of integration and marginalization of Asian Pacific Islander American artists in the progressive city of Seattle. In the micro level, it is experienced through daily social interactions within the community and on a macro level through educational programs and social policies. These mixed methods studies developed 1- a quantitative statistical descriptive analysis disaggregating 9 APIA subgroups by residential dispersion on tract level and basic socioeconomic parameters in King County and 2- a qualitative research focusing on 12 in-depth interviews with self-identified APIA artists contrasting race and gender identities by heterosexual and LGBT. The APIA racial category unique experience is understudied in the field and I sought to address this gap by contrasting current pervasive narratives and stereotypes. This was addressed via unpacking the reality of personal experiences of artists providing intimate insights on the shifting dynamics negotiationing these identities. The study controlled for similarities of experiences and outcomes framing analysis through the grounded theory methods of ulilizing data and inquiry to derive theory. In order to understand experiences of multiple marginzalizations, it's important to address a multitude of intersecting categories. In short, until we see it, it dones't exist. I expect to find that experiences of marginalizations increase when intersecting race/ethinicity of APIA artists with non-heterrosexual gender and sexual identities.

Understanding the sexual regulation of sorority women, and their role in it, is important in fully understanding the function and impact of sororities as a whole in modern collegiate experiences. Through my study of the Greek system at the University of Washington (UW) I worked to investigate the question: Do sorority women submit to sexual regulation in order to maintain or raise the house’s position in the sorority hierarchy? I surveyed 48 sorority women at the UW using vignette based questions to gauge sorority norms surrounding sexuality and its regulation in the Greek system. Within my research I am working under the assumption that sororities are reinventive institutions; institutions where women voluntarily join for empowerment and willingly submit to the regulation of all aspects of their identity. Through this perspective in the study I was able to gain insight into the underlying social mechanisms that maintain the social norms governing the sexuality of sorority members and how this is related to chapter status on campus, while recognizing the importance of the role individual members play within this process.

Previous studies investigating the perception of sexual misconduct by individuals in a university setting have not examined the effects of socioeconomic status on attitudes towards sexual misconduct. While these effects were considered in a university setting, understanding male perceptions of sexual misconduct more broadly is becoming increasingly relevant as allegations against high status individuals of varying political backgrounds continue to emerge. This paper paves the way for future research as to the effects of socioeconomic status on these perceptions at a more universal level. Using a survey composed of different hypothetical scenarios, this paper examines the relationship between the socioeconomic status of a male perpetrator and the attitudes of male college respondents regarding sexual misconduct toward women. Male undergraduates at the University of Washington were recruited from different residence halls and classrooms on campus to ensure sociodemographic variation in the sample. The data supported an analysis of how perpetrator’s socioeconomic status and respondent’s socioeconomic status may separately or jointly shape perceptions of hypothetical misconduct, and whether a respondent’s beliefs about feminism influence these associations. This study expects to observe a significant impact from both the socioeconomic status of the perpatrator and the socioeconomic status of the respondent both jointly and when considered separately.

 Scholars in many disciplines have used the concepts of charisma and charismatic authority to describe leaders of prominent terrorist groups. These researchers do not give the breadth and depth these topics require when attributing them to casual relationships between leaders and followers. As a field, the study of terrorism is lacking in substantial work on the subject. This leads to an absence of deep conceptual understanding and incorrect or ill-defined usage. I will address the gap created by these missing definitive parameters to build a clearer understanding of the concepts. Through systematic comparison of the social tools employed by the leadership of Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram I will explore the characteristics of charismatic authority. I will analyze comparative parameters of group leaders, local demographics, institutional structures, and major national or regional events that precede violence. This goal will be achieved through historical document analysis using primary and secondary sources. Primary sources include documented speeches and interviews, documents released by the groups, and personal documents of leaders. Secondary sources include news stories, scholarly articles, and other academic literature. The purpose of this research is to set the stage for those with access to their followers to adequately explore the potential causal relationship between charismatic leadership and the actions of their followers.

Researchers have examined the role of diversity, political opportunity, economic factors, and exclusion from executive power on interethnic conflicts. However, there is a lack of research to explain the impact of ritual behavior on interethnic conflicts. I use comparative historical research to focus on the role of religious rituals in Turkey and Iran by applying the following criteria of Randall Collins’ Interaction Ritual Model; bodily co-presence, barriers to outsiders, a mutual focus of attention, and shared mood. The descriptions of the rituals come from sociological, anthropological and religious works. In this research, I also use data from PEW and other research centers on the rate of participation in rituals such as visiting shrines, rate of pilgrimage participation, and other variables. In addition, I used the extant survey datasets on religious and ethnic relations in both countries. Iran and Turkey are two predominantly Muslim and ethnically diverse countries where people practice religious rituals. In this research, I investigated the effect of practicing Sunni rituals in Turkey and Shia rituals in Iran on interethnic relations among the ethnicities that share the same rituals. Since intensity and components of the rituals differ from each other, the potency of them to create social cohesion varies. Through analyzing the rituals and social cohesion in Iran and Turkey, I found a strong association between intensity of the religious rituals and interethnic social cohesion. Shia rituals in Iran are more intense, and because of that there is a high degree of social cohesion among Shia ethnicities. Contrarily, Sunni rituals in Turkey are not intense, and because of that the Sunni ethnicities in Turkey have a weak social cohesion. This study helps to understand the dynamics of interethnic conflicts and the political implications of religious rituals in Muslim societies.

Policies and practices rooted in the politics of “War and Drugs” and “Tough on Crime” have elevated the ever increasing power of federal prosecutors to an unprecedented height. Through punitive sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums, federal prosecutors have the ability to strong-arm plea deals and exert control over sentencing outcomes. Despite being a key element of the American criminal justice system, prosecutorial discretion remains an understudied topic in social science and law. Seeking to be hard on crime, the current Attorney General Jeff Sessions has rescinded the previous memos that discouraged federal prosecutors from seeking long mandatory minimums and enhancements, and encourage them to apply mandatory minimums whenever possible. The literature, however, has shown that prosecutors not only apply mandatory minimums selectively, but also at different rates across different legal contexts. Through interviews with federal defense attorneys in Seattle, this study attempts to investigate 1) the factors that federal prosecutors consider in making charging and sentencing relevant decisions, and 2) how these factors have been impacted by the 2017 Sessions Charging and Sentencing Memo in the legal context of the Western District of Washington. Findings will shed light on how national initiatives interact with local legal culture to influence punishment.

The global focus on health equity and the injustice of health disparities highlight the need to explore social determinants of health. While socioeconomic differences in alcohol use are well documented, the socioeconomic differences of those that have experienced positive outcomes from drug and alcohol treatment remain largely unexplored. Per the Stress Process Model and Fundamental Cause Theory, we would expect treatment’s ability to reduce substance use to be significantly influenced by access to resources—time, energy, and both economic and social capital). Moreover, if class-based disparities in recovery from addiction exist, this important dimension of inequality must be incorporated into our understanding of stratification in health outcomes. Using pooled cross-sectional time series data over 6 years on adults over 25 from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (N = 118,392), this study aims to answer the question: Does socioeconomic status (SES) moderate drug and alcohol treatment’s ability to reduce substance use? We operationalized measures of SES and receiving treatment as independent variables, the number of binge drinking days (five or more drinks in a day) in the last month as the dependent variable, and controlled for demographics and characteristics of past use. Additionally, we extend this research by comparing results from three years of low unemployment (1999, 2000, and 2001) and three years of high unemployment (2009, 2010, and 2011) to explore how the economic climate interacts with SES’s impact. Initial findings support the Stress Process Model and Fundamental cause theory by revealing that those of higher SES see a greater reduction in binge drinking after treatment. We expect times of high unemployment to exaggerate these findings, revealing structural barriers to recovery. The goal is to add to the academic understanding of social stratification, aid in targeted resource allocation to improve health, and promote health equity.

In this study, I revisit Morgan and Sørensen’s (M&S) (1999a) analysis of intergenerational social closure within Catholic and Public schools, using the National Education Longitudinal Study from 1988. In an article appearing in the American Sociological Review, M&S examined Coleman’s (1990) social capital theory of the schooling process. They find a negative association between social closure and mathematics achievement in public schools; and a positive association between social closure and mathematics achievement in Catholic schools (partially supporting Coleman’s Catholic school effect). The present study examines outcomes in deviance and mental-health by applying M&S’s models of norm-enforcing and horizon-expanding schools to explain differing outcomes. Although research on educational achievement is important, further examination into outcomes in deviance and mental-health—based on school social organization—have been somewhat absent in research of education. I hypothesize that students attending schools with higher levels of social capital have lower levels of deviance; students in schools with lower levels of social capital have higher levels of self-esteem. Additionally, I examine whether M&S’s models characterize norm-enforcing schools as having students with low levels of deviance and whether horizon-expanding schools are portrayed by students with high self-esteem.